BUSINESS SERVICES TEAM OF THE YEAR 2018

CMSWINNER

When in October 2016 the tripartite merger between CMS Cameron McKenna, Olswang and Nabarro was confirmed it marked the beginning of an ambitious plan to deliver a fully-integrated new law firm, notably with integrated teams, operations and systems, augmented client service, a common purpose and a shared vision. And all in six short months. This was an incredibly ambitious initiative with high stakes and heavy dependency on the business services team, across all disciplines, to pull together and deliver within an exceptionally tight timeframe.

A guiding principle throughout the integration was the “best of three”, a commitment to ensuring that the merged firm adopted the best policies and programmes from the three legacy firms. The stats just from one team (IT) sheds light on the gargantuan nature of the story: 80 million documents and 6,000 mailboxes migrated from three DMS systems into one; 2,500 mobile connections consolidated into one provider and 1,500 phones reconfigured; purchased, configured and installed more than 7,000 pieces of IT kit (excluding computers); and installed more than 1,500 desktops and Surface Pros with a new CMS combined build.

Judges said: “Dealing with a merger did not initially strike me as particularly innovative however, it is clear from this submission that this merger was particularly complex given the size of the merged firm and three legacy platforms to successfully integrate. So often you hear about mergers which are in fact just a takeover of one firm by another. But I was particularly impressed by the “best of three” concept [in which CMS adopts the best policy or approach from each firm in each area].”

Highly commended: Kennedys

Strategic growth lies at the heart of Kennedys entry to this category, with the overarching objective for business services at the firm being the successful delivery of mergers, acquisitions and office openings across APAC, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the US. Since April 2017 Business Services has supported the opening of five international offices and assisted a strategic transatlantic merger. “A large number of projects delivered successfully,” said one judge, “and the breadth and depth achieved in successfully delivering them all was impressive.”

Commended: Forsters

Forsters’ head of operations Sarah-Jane Muskett led the charge on the restructuring and outsourcing of the firm’s entire front of house services to a third party specialist supplier as part one of a two-phase change programme. This was not only a significant structural shift but a major cultural change for the firm in terms of its approach to handing business services change. Judges said: “Impressive to see two quite big changes to key areas of the firm managed successfully.”